Condors is an impressive mini-debut that's just long enough to show what the band can do, and suggest that they're well on the way to making all of their ideas gel into a cohesive whole.

While it's impressive that the band fills such big shoes, the biggest achievement of The Monitor is that it feels so significant in its own right.

With an overall sound that seems inspired by a searing mix of old-timey blues mixed with a hypodermic blast of melodic noise, there is a driving, wild-eyed intensity to many of the tracks on Beat the Devil's Tattoo.

So once again, they're preaching--at top volume--to the converted. Which is fine, because they remain very, very good at what they do.

While this album sounds like the Chieftains playing in fusion mode, it is so much more ambitious than anything they’ve attempted before. Some of the music here is contemporary, though much of it is over a century old; yet it reaches past its settings into the present day, telling of the indelibly rich meeting of two cultures oppressed by a third.

Since a big part of the Stripes’ live show also rests on their visuals, the Under Great White Northern Lights DVD gives the complete experience, but this album is satisfying enough to make it a must for most fans.

While it's hardly the stark, across-the-board tonal sea change suggested by several of its most immediately ear-catching cuts, And Then We Saw Land is at once an adventurous outward journey and an invitingly familiar return from an always intriguing, intrepid, and under-heralded band.

While the music of Wolf People is undeniably vibrant, vital, and visceral, it does not attempt to put any modern (or post-modern) spin on its building blocks; rather, it embraces all the aforementioned influences and moves out into the world as a living, breathing, very natural extension of them.

Archie Bronson Outfit might be testing their limits by taking so many stylistic risks on Coconut, but it all works surprisingly well for them; they never sound like they are pushing for the mainstream or losing their sense of individuality.

Like the previous album, Volume 2 would suffer under the weight of its own pastiche if it weren’t so darn endearing, filled as it is with call-and-response vocals, studio reverb, sweeping orchestrations, and other bygone tricks of the trade.

Many bands start to lose their way around the time of their third album, but on Two Thousand and Ten Injuries Love Is All sound better than ever and well-positioned to keep making smart, hooky, passionate records for a long time to come.

If the album seems somewhat slight, it’s purposefully so: Head First is a love letter to the frothy, fleeting, but very vital joys of pop music.

I Speak Because I Can delivers on nearly every level, upping both the production value (thanks to Ryan Adams and Kings of Leon producer Ethan Johns and fellow indie folk darlings Mumford & Sons) and the songwriting.

While Pearson would likely be flattered to be told that this disc resembles a hybrid of Michael Mayer's Immer (stern, dramatic; Joy Division) and Triple R's Friends (comparatively brighter and outgoing; New Order), he might also find the description a little limiting. Yet this disc does have each one of its elder siblings’ charms: a gentle buildup and easy finish, extended trance-like passages, spongy rhythms, seemingly incongruent tracks melded with ease and restraint, almost subliminally tense transitions from menace to bliss, and even some whispered vocals.

Stuck on Nothing isn’t going to change rock & roll history even a little, but for a good time, give the album a listen and you won’t be disappointed.

The slocore tag Picastro received early on in some corners has a vague relevance, but on a song like "Pig & Sucker," the sense of compelling, unsettled strangeness is much greater than most bands could pull off.

Bieber makes all the right, charming moves for a teen, and he covers all the bases. The dance-pop songs are light on the ears yet memorable; the unrequited material sounds deeply felt; the ballads have all the necessary us-against-the-world teen-love dramatics.

Make no mistake, the beats are coming, as is the dread synth (that sounds like The Terminator reborn), but it's all done in the context of music that is as engaging as it is experimental.

The Way of the World is not a comeback album; Henry had a nagging suspicion that Allison might have something new to say and Allison obliged. In the process they created a gem of an album that proves the pianist and songwriter still has many tricks up his elegantly tailored, eternally hip sleeve.

If Sigur Ros never releases another album, as long as Jonsi makes records this thrilling, it'll be OK.

This self-titled album is a fitting tribute to Toure’s and Diabate’s genius and friendship, and is a beautiful farewell.

The energy is, as ever, uniformly positive, albeit with a spirit that is more commonly playful, as on “Simple Advice” (loaded with so much kinetic percussion that it resembles a go-go band’s warm-up session), “Summer Love” (a lighthearted duet with Perkins over crawling, “Cutie Pie”-like machine funk), and “Room Punk!” (45 seconds of happily throwaway pop-punk).

Some listeners may pine for the less streamlined, less electronic, arguably more personable style of their debut, which after all peddled a distinctly different shade of retro-pop nostalgia, but those willing to move with the times (or rather, the 20-year revival cycle) will agree that the 'Beat have crafted another winner.

A Sufi and a Killer is nearly impossible to place or categorize, and this ageless quality is only embellished by Gonjasufi's vocal work, which at times sounds like a mystic channeling spirits from another dimension. Truly visionary.

This music is fierce and anthemic without ever sounding pretentious, and Pierced Arrows show that a few decades of experience can actually be good for you in punk rock, a welcome revelation in a genre that thrives on youthful snot.

Pizza Box is a long way from the punky bluegrass of the Bad Livers, and may be the best album Barnes has ever made.

Pictures is one of the rare albums that manages to hold tight to what is good about a band (in this case, energy and hooky songs), and add on new things (wider instrumentation, better arrangements) without compromising their strengths.

The Bird & the Bee manage to make these very familiar hits sound fresh without radically reinventing them. That in itself is a much trickier move than turning these all into slow acoustic dirges, but it's better still because these arrangements are true to both Hall & Oates and George & Kurstin.